Bolivia’s Evo Morales announces 2025 presidential bid

The leftist leader plans to seek a fourth term after being ousted from power in what he called a US-backed coup

Evo Morales, a leftist politician ousted from power in Bolivia amid riots four years ago, has announced that he will run for his fourth term as president in 2025. 

Writing on X (formerly Twitter) on Sunday, Morales said he will “accept the request” from his supporters to run again. “I am going to give it everything I can. We still have strength. We are going to face the aggression against us… with truth, dignity and honesty,” Morales wrote. 

Bolivia’s first president of indigenous descent and a staunch critic of US “imperialism,” Morales was first elected president in 2006. He was forced to step down in 2019 and leave the country during unrest sparked by allegations of rigging an election in favor of his Movement for Socialism party (MAS). Morales claimed that his ouster was a coup orchestrated by Washington. 

Morales was barred from running for office by conservative interim President Jeanine Anez in 2020. However, MAS won the parliamentary election that year and returned to power, with Luis Arce, a minister in Morales’ cabinet, becoming president. The new authorities charged Anez and several other officials with violating the constitution for their role in the events of 2019. She was eventually sentenced to ten years in prison. 

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Morales and Arce have since feuded over a variety of issues, including corruption and infrastructure projects. Arce has said the country’s top court must determine whether Morales is legally allowed to run for a fourth term as president.